Trust Me

by Olivia Cunning

  “That’s why you aren’t just dating me,” she said. “You’re marrying me.”

  “One of a million reasons why.”

  After dinner they headed across town to see if Amanda had returned home. Melanie was holding several to-go trays in a large plastic sack, the remnants of her meal. When they pulled into Amanda’s drive, her lights were on and, for once, her car was there.

  “I was starting to think she’d moved out of the country,” Gabe said as he switched off the ignition.

  A curtain near the front door moved, and then the lights inside immediately went off.

  “I think she’s avoiding you,” Melanie said.

  Even so, Amanda was in there, and he wouldn’t leave until she talked to him or called the cops to have him removed from her property.

  “Probably, but I’m not sure why she would,” he said.

  “Do you want me to come to the door with you? Maybe you’ll look less threatening if I’m there.”

  He turned his head to stare at her in astonishment. “You think I’m threatening?”

  “I don’t, but if I didn’t know you well and you showed up at my door after dark, I doubt I’d open it.”

  “Amanda knows me. I first met her at Jacob’s wedding more than five years ago.”

  “Well, maybe she forgot who you are.”

  “Uh, I saw her backstage last week. She hasn’t forgotten.”

  Melanie grinned at him. “You are pretty unforgettable. So should I go with you?”

  “I’ll try on my own. If I need you, I’ll wave. I think she’d be less likely to talk in front of you, to be honest.”

  Melanie shrugged. “Whatever works for you. I’m easy.”

  “Just a little,” he teased before kissing her. He slid out of the open truck door before she could slug him.

  Cicadas chirruped loudly as he walked the path to Amanda’s front door. He contemplated his options, trying to figure out how to get her to talk to him. He did know her, but they weren’t exactly close, and she’d likely have to betray her own sister’s trust to tell him what he needed to know. She might be okay with that, though. As much as he and his siblings squabbled, their rivalry came nowhere close to the discord between the Lange sisters.

  When he knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, there was no answer. Not that he was surprised. On his second attempt a small cat came to sit in the windowsill near the front door and stared at him with large amber eyes.

  “Amanda,” Gabe called, knocking a third time. “I know you’re in there. I saw you turn out the lights.”

  “Maybe they’re on a timer,” she said, followed by, “Shit!” After a few seconds she said, “What do you want, Gabe? I’m not up for company.”

  “Did you hear about the band breaking up?”

  “And I suppose you think it’s all my fault because I broke him.”

  He heard her sniff through the door.

  “I didn’t mean to break him.”

  So she had broken Jacob’s heart. Jacob had hinted to as much when Gabe had seen him the afternoon before he’d declared the band split and abandoned the tour bus. But Jacob had been through heartache before. It wasn’t likely that he’d destroy his career over any woman, no matter how much he loved her.

  “So you broke up with him. Big deal.” Gabe tried to play down Amanda’s role in Jacob’s undoing. “Why is he back with your sister? That’s what I want to know.”

  “I said terrible things to him, Gabe. I even insulted his intelligence. You know how sensitive he is about his lack of education.”

  “Will you open the door?” Gabe said. “I can keep talking loud enough to wake your neighbors, but maybe you don’t want them hearing this.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment. A light switched on, and the curtain in the window near the door moved again. The curious cat was scooped off the sill by a feminine hand.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said. “Just leave me to mourn in peace.”

  Gabe’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you mourning? Did something happen to Julie?” That seed that Owen had planted about Julie’s possible illness had apparently sprouted and taken root.

  “I’m mourning the loss of the man I love—have loved for years. I can’t believe he fucking went back to her,” she shouted at the other side of the door.

  “Wait. I thought you broke up with him.”

  “I did. Not because I wanted to.”

  He heard the door unlock, a chain slide in its track, and then the creak of the door hinges as she opened the heavy slab of wood about a foot. She had the cat securely in her grasp, but strangers apparently spooked the fur ball, and it struggled to be set down. As soon as its paws touched the floor, it sped off deep into the house.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Amanda looked like hell. Her clothes were crumpled, her dirty-blond hair was actually dirty, and her eyes were bloodshot above tear-stained cheeks. What was worse was that she had the same misery in her eyes that Jacob had shown the last time Gabe had seen him.

  She shrugged and hugged her arms around her body, rubbing her arms. “I didn’t die,” she said. “Just wish I had.”

  Gabe squeezed her shoulder. “If the two of you were meant to be together, you’ll end up together.”

  “Tina won’t let me see Julie,” she blurted. “She says it’s to keep me away from Jacob, but I offered to take my niece to the park, the way I do—did—almost every day since she was born and . . .” Her hands were shaking as she wiped away fresh tears. “If I had just kept loving him from afar as I had for all those years, then . . .”

  Gabe’s heart couldn’t stand seeing a woman in tears. He had no choice but to pull her out onto the front step and into a comforting embrace. The truck door slammed behind him, and hurried footsteps came up the path. Amanda pulled away, using the hem of her rather grubby T-shirt to wipe her face.

  “Hi, Amanda,” Melanie said. “I’m not sure if you remember me.”

  Amanda nodded miserably. “Melanie, right?” At Melanie’s nod, Amanda added, “Excuse me, but I need to go inside.” She turned to look longingly into her cozy little cottage.

  “Can we come in?” Gabe asked. He still didn’t have the answers he wanted. Amanda said she hadn’t wanted to break up with Jacob, and she was obviously as confused about Jacob returning to his ex as Gabe was, but there had to be some piece to this puzzle that Amanda knew and he didn’t. Luckily for him, Amanda’s ingrained Texan hospitality wouldn’t let her turn them away.

  Amanda opened the door all the way and said, “Yeah, come on in. Forgive the mess. Would you like some coffee? Tea? Tequila?” They followed her into the house, and she muttered, “Actually, no. I finished the tequila this morning. I might have some cheap wine around here somewhere.”

  Gabe had only been inside Amanda’s house a few times. He found the short ceilings and small rooms a tad claustrophobic with their country-style furnishings, yet at the same time, each room was quaint and homey.

  “Please,” Amanda said. “Have a seat.”

  He and Melanie sat side by side on a loveseat while Amanda ventured further into the house. Her small calico cat peered out at them from beneath a chair in the corner.

  “Here, kitty,” Melanie said, extending her hand in the general direction of the cat. Her gesture of goodwill was completely ignored.

  “Do you like cats?” Gabe was a dog person through and through. He preferred cats that were the outdoorsy type and kept rodents in check.

  “I like all animals.”

  “Even spiders and lizards?”

  Her nose crinkled. “Make that I like all mammals.”

  Amanda returned with three glasses of white wine. As she distributed them, he couldn’t help but notice that her glass was over twice as full as theirs.

  “Should I be concerned that you’re on your way to alcoholism?” Gabe asked, nodding toward her glass.

  “I’ve had a rough week,” she said.

  “I don’t t
hink you’re allowed to feel this lousy when you’re the one who did the breaking up.” He was attempting to get more information out of her, but she didn’t fall for his ploy.

  “I’m allowed to feel as lousy I want.”

  “So you want to feel lousy?” Melanie asked, taking a small sip of wine.

  “I deserve to feel lousy.” Amanda tossed back her wine in several gulps and set her empty glass on the coffee table before leaning back in the armchair she was sitting in and covering her eyes with both palms. “My sister deserves to feel even lousier, and instead, she gets everything she wants.”

  A touch of bitterness there. Not that he blamed her. Tina did seem to get everything she wanted.

  “Why does she even want Jacob back?” Gabe asked. “She hated him when they were married.”

  “She only hated that she couldn’t control him. Now she thinks that she can.”

  “And you don’t?” Gabe asked. Because Gabe was pretty sure Jacob was not in control of the situation.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. He’s different when he’s with her.”

  “Yeah, he’s miserable. That’s what miserable Jacob looks like,” Gabe said. “But last week, when he was with you, he seemed happy.”

  Amanda removed her hands from her face to look at him. “And I went and fucked that up.”

  “Why?” Melanie asked.

  Amanda contemplated her guests for a long moment before closing her eyes again. “Because I’m a coward. At least this way he gets to be with Julie.”

  “Julie isn’t sick, is she? She doesn’t have cancer or some other horrible disease, does she?” Gabe needed to put that ugly thought to rest once and for all.

  Amanda scowled at him. “No. Why would you ask that? Why would you even think that?”

  “We’re just trying to make sense of Jacob’s actions,” Gabe said. “Nothing he’s done since last weekend makes a bit of sense.”

  “And what does Julie being sick have to do with Jacob’s lack of sense?”

  “It might explain why he’s willing to go back with Tina. I honestly can’t think of any reason but Julie that would make him consider her worth his time.”

  “I don’t know why he went back to Tina. All I know is that she threatened to take Julie away from him if I didn’t break up with him.” Amanda covered her mouth with her hand and said in a muffled voice, “Damn wine.”

  “So that’s why you broke up with him. Tina made you do it?”

  “That’s horrible,” Melanie said.

  “What’s horrible is knowing how much I must have hurt him,” Amanda said. Her eyes were glassy when she bit the side of her finger.

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” Melanie said, leaning forward and placing a comforting hand on Amanda’s knee. “Tina is definitely the horrible one for putting you in that position.”

  “But what can I do about it?” Amanda said. “If I try to talk to Jacob—even to tell him how sorry I am—I know Tina will use his feelings for Julie to keep him in check. To hurt him even more.”

  “Someone needs to tell him the truth,” Gabe said, a plan finally forming in his previously blank mind. “What if I told him what a manipulative bitch he’s currently living with?” Not that Jacob would be astonished by that revelation. He happened to know better than anyone on the planet what kind of person Tina was. “What if I told him that you haven’t stopped caring about him? That Tina threatened you so you can’t set things right, even though you want to.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened. “You can’t!”

  “Why not?” Melanie asked. “At least he’ll know what he’s up against.”

  “You’ve never met my sister,” Amanda pointed out, “and you already know what she’s capable of. If she finds out—”

  “Who’s going to tell her?” Gabe asked. “Jacob?”

  “She probably has him bugged.”

  Actually, Gabe would not put that past Tina, but surely she wouldn’t go to that much trouble to keep Jacob under her thumb. Then again . . .

  “You know the band can’t go on without him,” Gabe said. “You know that.”

  Amanda nodded solemnly. “And I’m truly sorry to have added to the strain that sent Jacob over the edge, but I don’t think telling him I didn’t really want to break up with him will change anything. It might even make things worse for him. At least this way he won’t jeopardize his relationship with his daughter by contacting me.”

  “Aren’t there laws against this kind of manipulation?” Melanie asked. She looked completely dumbfounded.

  “Only if there are also laws against people being easily led.”

  “But she’s using that little girl,” Melanie said. “It’s just . . . just wrong.”

  “I agree,” Gabe said, and he wasn’t going to stand by and let it continue to happen. “Sorry to drop in and run, Amanda, but it’s getting late.” He stood and patted Amanda’s shoulder. “Hang in there. If you need anything, please call or text me. Don’t make me show up on your doorstep unannounced.”

  She grinned. “You are obnoxiously persistent when you have your mind set on something.”

  “I’ve noticed that too,” Melanie said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Gabe said, and after saying goodbye, he showed himself and Melanie to the door.

  “You’re going to let this go?” Melanie asked as they strolled toward the truck at the end of the driveway.

  “Hell no. I hope you didn’t have your heart set on making it home at a decent hour.”

  She snorted and shook her head. “We’re going to Jacob’s house, aren’t we?”

  “Naturally.”

  *****

  A light glowed in a room near the front of Jacob’s house. It was well after nine o’clock, and Gabe would feel bad if he woke Julie, so he walked quietly to the front door and knocked rather than ringing the doorbell. He’d left Melanie to wait in the truck, figuring Jacob would be less likely to listen in front of a witness he didn’t know well. Gabe’s summons was answered after his second attempt, but Jacob didn’t look overly happy to see him.

  “A little late to drop by unannounced, don’t you think?” Jacob asked, a heavy scowl crinkling his brow. “You’re disturbing my family.”

  “I just came from Amanda’s house,” Gabe said.

  A flicker of pain crossed over Jacob’s face, but it was gone so quickly that Gabe thought maybe he imagined it.

  “How nice for you,” Jacob said, closing the door.

  Gabe blocked the action with his foot, wincing as the door caught his toe.

  “I thought you might want to know why she broke up with you.”

  “She told me why,” Jacob said, his breath hitching with anguish. “I’m not smart enough for her. But you might be, Mr. Physics Major.” Jacob pushed on the door, and Gabe lifted his forearm against it for added leverage.

  “Amanda doesn’t think that of you. Not at all.” Gabe lowered his voice to a whisper in case someone was listening in. “Tina threatened to keep you from seeing Julie if Amanda didn’t dump you.”

  Jacob’s eyebrows drew together. “Is that so?”

  “Who’s at the door?” Tina’s voice came from inside the house.

  “Jehovah’s Witness,” Jacob called back.

  “At this hour?” she questioned.

  “You need to go,” Jacob said to Gabe. “You’ll ruin everything.”

  “I’ll ruin everything?” Astonished, Gabe almost made the mistake of stepping back. “Did you hear what I said? Amanda still cares about you. You need to toss this ex of yours once and for all—”

  “Since when is Gabe Banner a Jehovah’s Witness?” Tina asked, coming around Jacob’s broad body to stand next to him. She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her toe as she glared at Jacob. “Well?”

  “I was trying to get rid of him,” Jacob said.

  “Why?” Tina said. “You should invite him in. How do you ever expect to get Sole Regret back together if you don’t patch things up with your ba
ndmates?”